Guatemala - Part 1.

During the week off that the schools here take to celebrate independence from Spain we did a rather brief 8 day trip to Guatemala. Our first night was spent in Guatemala City in a 5 star hotel which was a sharp contrast to our volunteer share house. It had hot water, buffet breakfast, upside-down umbrellas hanging from the roof of the lobby and those cool glass fronted lifts.












The luxury didn’t last though, the next night was spent “sleeping” on the bus to Flores. The next day we just chilled in the small town of El Remate, went for a short hike in the national park, saw some nice lookouts over the lake.


Then came Tikal which was, along with Semuc Champey, was my favorite part of the trip. We hired a guide who took us around to all the best bits of the site and told us plenty of Mayan history and also the history of all the various restoration projects.










Got back to town around 3pm and spent the rest of the day lounging beside the pool. Bel decided to try a cocktail that she’d never heard of before (a Michelada) turns out is was beer with Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce, not such a winning combo!!!!

Un Elefante...

This is a very short post... mostly because the video tells it all. I sing elephant songs!!

PS The kids loved the Hockey Pockey as well :)

Volcano Boarding

Ok, playing a bit of blog catch-up here so pretend you’re reading this 3 weeks ago :)
This weekend we went to Leon and climbed the Cerro Negro Volcano. It’s a very young volcano, only about 150 years old. Apparently it just popped up overnight in the middle of this farming region outside of Leon (being a farmer must be hard enough with the droughts and floods without having a volcano pop up in the middle of you cabbages!!).

Anyway, the tour started at the barefoot hostel where we saw the top recorded ash boarding speeds (80km per hour for guys and 72 for girls). We then got into the back of a ute for a bumpy ride to the volcano.



(incidentally Cerro Negro is where Eric Barone set a world speed record on a mountain bike).

I took us about 1.5 hours to carry our boards to the top where we donned the sexy overalls and goggles for the descent.










Alas no speed records were broken but it was an awesome ride!! Every time I’d get some speed going I’d lose control and fall off. The speed was measured at the bottom so by the time I got there I was only doing 20km per hour.
After that it was back to the hostel for Mojitos :)

Los Pueblos Blancos – The White Villages

This weekend we boarded the chicken bus (the guidebooks call them chicken buses but I've yet to see a chicken) to check out the Peublos Blancos or White villages. These are a bunch of villages which specialize in arts, crafts, ceramics, etc. The first stop was Catarina which has a very nice lookout over the crater lake of Laguna De Apoyo (we went there the weekend before last, would have made a good blog entry but I was too busy lounging in hammocks to take any photos).

Then all 4 of us crammed into a Tuk-Tuk to get to the next town of San Juan De Oriente which is renown for producing lots of very cool ceramics.

Final stop was Diriomo which is meant to have a reputation for white witchcraft and some funky alcoholic drink made from corn. On the witchcraft front we only managed to locate a tarot card lady who said she had a sore throat and therefore would not be able to accurately read our cards! We did have more success with the corn drink though, we found a guide that took us to a small drinking house (it was literally just a house) and they served us a mildly fizzy concoction. Hard to describe the taste, certainly not unpleasant but I don't think it would make a good “session” drink. The brewer said it's cooked for 8 days and then fermented for 1. I think the shortness of brewing time is what leads to the lack of depth on the pallet.

To finish the day off we went and took a photo of this guy and spent the bus ride home alternately feeling confused as to whether he's meant to be a cowboy or a shepherd and disappointed over the continued absence of chickens on the chicken bus.

Vegan Delights

In an out-of-the-way barrio here in Granada, right near the central markets, is an unnamed French Bakery which is manned by an old French hippy couple. They make bread in a woodfired oven and they make vegan meals, mostly for the volunteers, upon request. Nicky, Owen and Pip were visiting from Costa Rica for 2 days this week and it corresponded with a trip to the French bakery for a 3 course vegan meal for less than $6AUD. This place is sure to become a regular haunt!

First Week!

Dan and I formally began volunteering this week with La Esperanza Granada. Whilst Dan initially was going to be a handy man, he asked to be on the English team instead. His team visits all of the schools giving lessons mostly on basic English vocubulary. I am at a school called Angela Morales which is a very small school of about 60 children (depending on how many show up that day..).

The first day we did one to one reading and then today we took the Preescolar children (kindergarten) and made butterflys stuck to a peg and a pipecleaner. They loved them! I have to say that I was surprised at the lack of dexterity for some of them. Also, there is a tendency for the kids who have finished to want to also finish the work for those who are struggling. The focus is on finishing the task, not on the learning itself.


Nonetheless, it was fun – I've learnt the spanish words for butterfly, glue, peg, scissors :) I am struggling to understand what is said to me, and generally I just smile and nod and then say something else.. Luckily Charlotte from my house (another volunteer) is there to help with the translation. Alas, it is her last week, so next week I will have to really concentrate on understanding!


The photos of the children are beautiful :)

Granada Running of the Bulls

The Sunday just passed was the festival of the running of the bulls in Granada. Despite the warnings of large crowds and professional pickpockets, we decided to risk it and sought out a nice viewing sport at about 11.30am.



People watching in itself was very entertaining. As the crowd slowly built, the best vantage points (out of the sun and with a secure view of the road, became harder to obtain. We were blown away by the number of (mostly) children who scaled the scaffolding at the park we were in and sat there for the almost 4 hours before the bulls arrived. Rather than vacate their spot to buy snacks and drinks, a system of yelling, throwing down money and passing up food/drinks/change seemed to work great... It wasn't so great sitting under the person eating....



When finally the bulls arrived it was quite a strange moment. There were in fact only 8 bulls running over 4 different streets. Thus, there was generally only 1 bull in the view at a time. There were about 5 cowboys per bull and they would lasso it's neck and almost drag it down the streets. Then occasionally the bull would pick up some speed and the crowd would practically yelp with excitement.. If the bull dared to stop, it would be surrounded by the crowd and beaten with rope/branches/planks of wood. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but at this point I had had enough – whilst the locals love this event, I wasn't really enjoying seeing the bull like this.. I'm glad we went so that we could see first had what it was like. We did get some interesting photos, and we did manage to not be robbed :) (though a friend was not so lucky).

PS read what is says on the lady's scarf in the last photo :)